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ngtwolf

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2018
Messages
991
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Not an introduction, but thought it would be interesting to just have a thread where people say what they do in their real life and this seemed like the best place for that kind of thread. I assume most of us are either retired or in IT of some type, but just curious what folks do around here.

In my case, I'm a technical project manager doing IT Infrastructure projects for a large multi-state hospital chain. I mostly pretend to not be 'hands on' technical since it's more entertaining that way. :)
 
FWIW, isn’t the About Me section in your Profile the best place for information like this?

smp
 
ngtwolf said:
Not an introduction, but thought it would be interesting to just have a thread where people say what they do in their real life and this seemed like the best place for that kind of thread. I assume most of us are either retired or in IT of some type, but just curious what folks do around here.

In my case, I'm a technical project manager doing IT Infrastructure projects for a large multi-state hospital chain. I mostly pretend to not be 'hands on' technical since it's more entertaining that way. :)
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I would say "most of us" are probably not in IT. I'm willing to bet that a large percentage of the people here actually got or get their hands dirty.
 
smp said:
FWIW, isn’t the About Me section in your Profile the best place for information like this?

smp
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Sure, if you wanted tell people about yourself who might look you up, that would be the place to post it. This was meant more as a general 'what do folks do' who are part of the vintage community kinda discussion, not really meant to be about a specific person. I'm pretty sure the only thing in my About Me section is my location though, since that's the only thing anyone would need to know (if I'm trying to buy or sell something). I guess the same could be said for the 'introductions' section at all though... anything you'd post in introductions could just be posted in your profile.
 
I'd prefer the not being judged by your job/career method. We are all here for our love of vintage computing.. Isn't that enough?
 
VERAULT said:
I'd prefer the not being judged by your job/career method. We are all here for our love of vintage computing.. Isn't that enough?
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Sure, just like any other thread on this site, no-one really needs to participate in a thread. There are a lot of them I don't post in. I'm sure there are people who don't want to mention at work that they collect vintage computers, lest they be judged there. :) Also, where is the line of what we feel comfortable talking about? What if I have other hobbies and I want to talk about how i'd like to use my vintage computer with that Hobby. Should I not mention it here because I don't want to be judged on that hobby by folks of this hobby? Do I avoid talking about vintage computers on that Hobby site? Maybe I just keep it all to myself? It all seems overly confusing.
 
ngtwolf said:
Sure, just like any other thread on this site, no-one really needs to participate in a thread. There are a lot of them I don't post in. I'm sure there are people who don't want to mention at work that they collect vintage computers, lest they be judged there. :) Also, where is the line of what we feel comfortable talking about? What if I have other hobbies and I want to talk about how i'd like to use my vintage computer with that Hobby. Should I not mention it here because I don't want to be judged on that hobby by folks of this hobby? Do I avoid talking about vintage computers on that Hobby site? Maybe I just keep it all to myself? It all seems overly confusing.
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Verault's opinion is just that - nothing more than an opinion. He doesn't have to participate.

Years ago there would be threads like "Show us your car." I found those to be much more enjoyable than the rants we've had to suffer through. This thread is fine ...

Chuck - that sounds like a good problem to have. When are we going to see you at VCF PNW? It's nearly in your back yard ...
 
mbbrutman said:
Chuck - that sounds like a good problem to have. When are we going to see you at VCF PNW? It's nearly in your back yard ...
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Chuck(G) said:
Mike, I don't know. My last vacation was in 1989.
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My friend in Portland went the first time this year and really enjoyed it. Pretty much rubbed it in our faces by sending all sorts of really neat pictures of some amazing systems to our chat group, so i'll definitely need to make it to one myself. Sadly, the VCF West one this year overlaps with my yearly vegas trip to see friends. :(
 
OK, I see a lot of discussion...but none of it to the point of this tread. So here goes. I am a Chemist who has always loved computers. I avoided going into IT because I was afraid that making it my job would kill my joy. Most of the IT people I have known don't mess with computers on their own time. I got into vintage computing by accident. My son-in-law's grandfather passed away a couple of years ago. They found his PCjr in the basement while clearing out his house and gave it to me. That free system has cost me a lot, but also given me a lot of pleasure. I have amassed a lot of equipment, most of which I haven't found time to play with. I am retiring this summer, so should have plenty of time to play this winter. I need to sort things out, repair anything non-working items I can, and then sell off a lot of excess stuff so it all fits in the approximately 25 X 8 foot room I have dedicated to the hobby. Most of it fits now, but it is so crowded and disorganized that I can't really use any it.
 
I am a Product Manager/Product Owner for several software-as-a-service offerings. If you aren't aware, product managers have no formal authority, but are responsible for determining what gets built in the application (in addition to several other jobs). For those that find product owners to be troublesome meddlers, I usually respond, "Could be worse, you could be working directly with marketing."
 
Failure to get a job here after studying electrical engineering, led me to make a lil business building new custom PCs for people. It pays the bills. I find myself spending much more time working on designs, sourcing, etc, for the items I sell in my signature to other vintage PC hobbyists.
 
If anyone needs an Oracle Forms/Database programmer, ideally with opportunities to work with PostgreSQL let me know.
 
KenEG said:
OK, I see a lot of discussion...but none of it to the point of this tread. So here goes. I am a Chemist who has always loved computers. I avoided going into IT because I was afraid that making it my job would kill my joy.
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So what's funny is that the first job i took was a general office job and I also avoided going into 'computer' work because I didn't want to kill my enjoyment. However, since it was an office job, we worked on computers that regularly went down. The system ran BBx (Business Basic) and so when it got bad data, the computer would error out. We'd call the computer guy who usually sat in his office reading the newspaper and when he'd feel like coming over, he'd fix the issue. Well, we had deadlines and so I would usually just fix it myself since I knew basic (usually just needed to go to the next line because the current line was putting a bad variable into a string). Eventually the IT guy would stroll around later and get annoyed that i would do his job. When that guy quit, one of the cofounders had to come back and run the MIS group and just moved me over... But yeah, I found that if you're really into something, try as you might.. you can't really stay out of it.

As well, it's true about IT folks these days. Back in the late 90s, early 2000's there was a influx of folks getting into IT who weren't computer interested folks... they got into it for the money mostly. A lot of it now is the effects of that The desktop guys don't own/build their own computers, the network guys use comcast modem/router combos, programmers buy their own pre-imaged computers.. Sigh.

rpiguy2 said:
I am a Product Manager/Product Owner for several software-as-a-service offerings. If you aren't aware, product managers have no formal authority, but are responsible for determining what gets built in the application (in addition to several other jobs). For those that find product owners to be troublesome meddlers, I usually respond, "Could be worse, you could be working directly with marketing."
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As a project manager, it's basically the same here, all the responsibility, none of the authority.. There are surprisingly very few people who can both understand technology and translate it into business needs so it is a more important job (company wise) then folks realize. :)
 
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